We all work in the internet security industry, and as such we're involved with a wide range of technologies, markets and people. Our collective blog is a space for our insights, observations and interests...

(N.B. The opinions expressed here are those of the individual authors, and not those of Smoothwall ltd or Smoothwall inc.)

Wednesday, May 6, 2015

Bloxham Students Caught Buying Legal Highs at School

It’s true what they say: History repeats itself. This is especially true in the world of web security where tech-savvy students, with an inquisitive nature try to find loopholes in school filters to get to where they want to be or to what they want to buy.

Back in September we blogged about two high profile web filtering breaches in the US; highlighting the cases of Forest Grove and Glen Ellyn Elementary District. Both made the headlines because students had successfully circumvented web filtering controls.

Now the media spotlight is on Bloxham School in Oxfordshire, England, after pupils were caught ordering legal highs from their dorms. See what I mean about history repeating itself? Okay, so the cases aren’t identical, but there is a unifying element. The Forest Grove student was found looking at erotica on Wattpad, students from Glen Ellyn students were caught looking at pornography, and at Bloxham it’s “legal” highs. The unifying factor in all three cases is that they were facilitated by a failure in the school’s web filter.

The difficulty, though, is working out what exactly went wrong with Bloxham’s filter, because none of the details surrounding the technicalities have been announced. Were students allowed access to website selling recreational drugs, or was there an oversight on the part of the web filtering management? In the original story broken by the Times, a teenage pupil was reported to have been expelled, and other students disciplined following an investigation by the school which found they had been on said websites.

Without knowing the details, it is probably wrong to speculate, however, i’m going to do it anyway! It’s entirely possible Bloxham chose a more corporate focussed web filter. In a corporate environment, “legal" highs may not present as much of an issue as in an education setting. With a strong focus on education, Smoothwall’s content filter has always been good at picking up these types of site. This is aided by the real-time content filter not reliant on a domain list, as these sites are always on the edge of the law, and move rapidly. Because the law is different depending upon where you live - and, indeed, rapidly changing regarding these substances, Smoothwall doesn’t attempt to differentiate between the grey area of “legal highs” and those recreational substances on the other side of the law. All of them come under the “drugs” category. This gives a solid message across all age ranges, geographies and cultures: it’s best not to take chances with your health!